Monstanto, The World's Largest Seed Company, Wants to Buy Syngenta, the World's Largest Pesticide Company/Coca-Cola Slowly Deprives 30,000 People of Water in El Salvador

Charles writes: "Selling seeds and pesticides
used to be a sleepy, slow-moving business. That was, until about 20 years ago,
when the chemical company Monsanto introduced genetically modified crops and
started buying up seed companies."

Protesters on the streets of Montreal in May, campaigning against genetically
modified organisms and Monsanto. (photo: Cristian Mijea/Demotix/Corbis)

Monstanto, The World's Largest Seed Company, Wants to
Buy Syngenta, the World's Largest Pesticide Company

By
Dan Charles, NPR

10 June 15

elling seeds and pesticides used to be a sleepy,
slow-moving business. That was, until about 20 years ago, when the chemical
company Monsanto introduced genetically modified crops and started buying up
seed companies. Ever since, companies in this industry have been maneuvering
like hungry fish in a pond, occasionally dining on pieces of each other, hoping
to survive through size and speed.

Monsanto, now the world's biggest seed company, is
attempting its biggest bite ever. It wants to acquire Syngenta, a
Switzerland-based company that sells pesticides and seeds, for $45 billion.
Syngenta is currently the world's biggest seller of agricultural chemicals, and
it is ranked third in seed sales.

Syngenta has rejected the deal, at least
for now. The European company says Monsanto is offering a "grossly
inadequate" price. It is also wary of pursuing a deal that government
regulators in some parts of the world might end up blocking. The company also
says it worries about the "reputational risk" of combining with
Monsanto — implying that Monsanto is the corporate equivalent of a high school
boy who's not cool.

In fact, a dose of cultural and personal animosity
does appear to stand in the way of a deal. This past week, Syngenta took the
unusual step of publicly releasing two letters in
which Monsanto's CEO, Hugh Grant, made his case for a merger. In the first
letter, Grant had expressly asked that the offer be "kept strictly
confidential."

"I've been watching this with fascination,"
says John Sorenson, the former
president of Syngenta's global biotechnology division. Sorenson now is CEO of a
startup company in Kalamazoo, Mich., called Vestaron. He says that his former
employer fits the European stereotype: hierarchical in structure, deliberate in
making decisions, sometimes slow-moving. Monsanto, on the other hand, is
"very American — Wild West." It has been aggressive, nimble, and
single-minded. As a result, it is also widely reviled.

"Can you imagine them merging?" I ask.

"No!" Sorenson says, with a laugh. "But
I would not underestimate Monsanto." When Monsanto pursues something, he
says, "it's relentless."

"Ultimately, it comes down to price,"
Sorenson says. If Monsanto offers enough money, Syngenta's shareholders will
make sure the sale goes through. Sorenson says if he were forced to place a
bet, he'd estimate the chance of a deal at about 60 percent.

To preserve competition in the seed industry, and make
the deal more palatable to antitrust regulators, Monsanto is promising to sell
off Syngenta's seed business. It is also proposing to move the combined
company's headquarters to London and to adopt a new name.

Dropping the Monsanto name might not be a bad move.
One attempt to measure the reputations of
100 top companies, conducted by Harris Interactive, ranked Monsanto fourth from
the bottom.

Excerpt: "The main and only source of water for
thousands of Salvadorans is in peril."

Residents from a Salvadoran municipality have seen a gradual depletion and
contamination of their main and only water source since multinational
corporations like Coca-Cola started operations there. (photo: Creative Commons)

Coca-Cola Slowly Deprives 30,000 People of Water in El
Salvador

By
teleSUR

10 June 15

The main and only source of
water for thousands of Salvadorans is in peril.

esidents from a Salvadoran municipality have seen a
gradual depletion and contamination of their main and only water source since
multinational corporations like Coca-Cola started operations there, activists
have denounced.

The municipality of Nejapa, in northern El Salvador,
is home to almost 30,000 thousand people who depend on its river San Antonio to
satisfy daily activities from hydration and bathing to washing clothes and
cattle farming.

Residents complain that since multinational
corporations Coca-Cola, Jumex and Agua Cristal have been using industrial wells
to exploit and rob most of the water source, there has been a significant
decrease in water supply.

“"It is regrettable that in a municipality rich
in water there are still entire communities that lack this vital liquid,"
said Roxana Brizuela, a health advocate and Nejapa resident.

Brizuela explained that 10 years ago people enjoyed
full access to water, which Nejapa natives are now unable to drink because of
industrial contamination. Local residents say the water kills their animals and
sickens their stomachs.

The impact of the Nejapa’s water exploitation has led
many local communities to support a pending law called the Water Act that could
protect this vital resource.

“This way companies wouldn’t come and take our water
without anyone saying anything, because they are only interested in selling
water,” affirmed Brizuela. “They don’t care about the people who really need
it.”

According to Carlos Flores, from the Water Forum,
right-wing politicians are opposing the law because it is not in their
interest.

“That would mean that what’s happening here won’t
happen again because there will be someone who thinks about the water … and
will prevent things like these to happen,” he said.

"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs